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Monday, August 22, 2016

The Goddess Hina was very upset. Her husband was so lazy!
Not only did he expect her to make him fine kapa to wear, but he expected her
to fish, and keep the garden, and even do all the cooking! She loved making kapa,
and was very good at it, but cooking was a man’s prerogative, and fishing and
gardening were normally shared. Yet her husband demanded she do it all while he
napped.

She decided to run away, but how?

One day, she spotted one of the many rainbows the falls
by the cave she made her home in were named for. It looked solid, and she was
goddess enough to go up to it and start to climb. However, as she climbed, it
got hotter and hotter, for she was getting closer to the hot sun. It got so
hot, she had to turn around and go back.

Back to her husband, who was as lazy as ever. He still
demanded he do his work as well as her own. Running away looked better and
better, but she had to make sure she escaped this time.

One night she spotted a moonbow by the falls. With no sun
out, it shouldn’t get as hot, she mused. She went over to it, and started to
climb.

Her husband came out of the cave, and ran towards her,
demanding she come back. He leap ed towards her, and caught her foot before
she’d climbed out of reach. She struggled to get away. With a great kick, she
pulled free, making him fall back to earth… but wrenched her ankle in the
process. She wasted no time, hobbling high out of reach before he could recover
and try again.

She climbed right to the moon, and there she stayed. You
can see her when you look up at the moon, sitting with her wrenched ankle in
front of her as she pounds her kapa. When she spreads it out to dry, it forms
white clouds, complete with the original emphasis on her husband’s laziness. (No, that
wasn’t my idea. J )

I don’t know many legends by heart, but I know this one
well enough to tell it from memory. It’s stuck with me ever since I heard it at
a storytelling at Kea’au library when I was a kid. This was one of the stories,
illustrated on a felt board.

The Goddess Hina was known as the mother Maui. The Hilo
area said she lived in a cave behind Waianuenue, or Rainbow Falls.

I don’t see any cave. Well, unless you count the backwash
beach behind the actual falls, but that’s subject to continual spray from the
falls. Besides, that kapa she made was a paper-cloth; the fibers were literally
pounded together with beaters until it formed a flat, somewhat stiff sheet that
people would wrap around themselves. If you got it wet, it went to mush that
couldn’t be worn. So a backwash beach home is one you can’t get dressed in, or
even keep your clothes in.

Now this is a spot on the Wailuku River. There are enough
caves with underwater entrances, a known way to drown is to get caught in one,
and not be able to surface for air. Having one with an air pocket would be
unusual, but far from impossible… but you’d still have to store your clothes
outside to keep them from going to mush.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Kahuna Falls is the other large falls in Akaka Falls
State Park; the one you also see if you take the entire loop, and don’t just go
down to Akaka Falls and back. One of the reasons it was called Kahuna Falls
(The Priest’s Falls) is that there’s a pool right at the top of the falls
that’s supposed to heal ills if you bathe in it. People were supposed to take
their sick family members to it in stretchers and everything so they could
bathe in the pool and be healed.

Sounds a lot like a lot of healing springs and pools
around the globe, right? There’s just one little difference. They won’t let me
embed from Google Maps, so here’s a link to the best picture Google Maps' street view seems
to have of it.

If you’re have trouble
figuring out the picture, the falls comes from about 5/6ths the way up that
cliff, where slightly gentler cliffs up to the top of the ridge from there.I think most healing pools and springs are a little more
accessible, especially since you really were supposed to climb up from the
bottom of the falls. {pause}

My first impression is that anyone who can climb up there
didn’t need much healing, but it’s not that simple. Especially not with stretchers
and lots of relatives with good, strong backs to make that climb, and help pull
their sick relative up it. Because in Lilo and Stitch, Disney understated the
importance of family in Hawaiian culture. If Auntie is sick, they’ll get her
there. It may take a lot of amicable bickering while arranging the ropes and
the stretcher and all, but they’ll do it for Auntie.

P.S. I’m sorry this one
doesn’t have more of a story, but this is what I had time for after making the
last chair cover and fighting a suddenly difficult mouse (unsuccessfully so
far). {half-smile}